1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing setting methods, printing setting apparatuses, and media, for printing jobs, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a storage medium storing a program, and a computer-readable program which allow a printing preview to be displayed with the printing settings of documentation data generated by an application program being taken into account.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when a document (document data) generated by an application program is printed, a set of printing setting attributes formed of a plurality of printing setting items specified by a printer driver in advance is generally defined for a printing job for the document.
Software having a “collective printing” function has been known, in which documentation data which an application program instructs to print is not output to a printer but is stored in a client and a plurality of stored documentation data is collectively sent to the printer as one job.
When the user wants to collectively execute a plurality of printing jobs generated, for example, by an application program A suited to generate texts, an application program B suited to generate tables, and an application program C suited to generate drawings, the user needs to spool pages to be output and feels inconvenient because the “collective printing” function just combines a plurality of printing jobs into one printing job, collective printing is specified, and data is printed in the order in which the data is spooled for collective printing. When a material formed of a text, a drawing, a text, a table, and a text each having one page is to be printed, for example, it is necessary that a first page be generated by the application program A and spooled, a second page be generated by the application program B and spooled, a third page be generated again by the application program A and spooled, a fourth page be generated by the application program C and spooled, and a fifth page be generated by the application program A and spooled.
When data to be collectively printed is previewed, a preview provided by each application program can be seen, but a preview having a plurality of printing settings specified by a printer driver cannot be seen. In addition, even when the printer driver provides a preview, if a plurality of printing settings defined in a plurality of printing jobs differ in a case when the plurality of printing jobs are collectively executed, a preview cannot be performed.
Furthermore, when a plurality of files are to be printed in one job, if the user wants to specify finishing for the combined job, there is no way to specify it and there is no preview function therefor. How the files are printed by a printing apparatus cannot be understood before printing.
To solve the foregoing drawbacks, it can be considered that a way to further edit the printing setting attributes of a printing job once spooled is provided. When the user interface (UI) of the printer driver of an output printer is used, it is effective since all the functions of the printer can be specified.
When a printing job once generated is held as intermediate data, and the printing setting attributes of the printing job are edited, however, unlike each-document settings, changes of some setting items may need to be restricted. When a printing job is converted to an intermediate code and a setting related to printing quality is changed in the intermediate data, for example, printing quality may deteriorate because a graphic engine outputs bit-map data having a format depending on a device according to an application program in some cases. In such a case, a change of the setting related to printing quality should be restricted. When the user interface of the printer driver is used, a change of the printing-quality setting cannot be restricted.
When a plurality of jobs for a plurality of documents are combined into one job, since a printing setting for the combined job needs to be changed while the printing setting attributes specified for each job need to be enabled, the user interface of the printer driver cannot be used. When a one-page-printing (when N pages are compressed, arranged, and printed in one physical page, it is called N-page printing, N-up, or Nin 1) job and a two-page-printing job are combined, for example, it is difficult for the user interface of the printer driver to specify stapling of pages with each job layout being maintained.